The Red Shoes (1948)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: *****

I'd been putting off seeing this since I was seventeen and first heard of it. I guess I was just afraid of not liking it after hearing such praise from the likes of Marty Scorcese. While the film didn't change my life like it did for him, it certainly won me over. The ballet sequence is beyond words--"breathtaking" or "astonishing" are practically downplaying its power. The love story worked wonders for me, too. I didn't know who I wanted to get the girl, and I can't remember ever being so split during a viewing of any other film. And the cinematography; acting; directing--yeah, they were all top notch, too.

A Child Is Waiting (1963)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 2.5

Bed & Board (1970)

Location: Home
Seen Before: Yes
Rating: 5.0

Live Flesh (1997)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 4.0

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

Location: Maxi-Saver
Seen Before: No
Rating: * 1/2

Ron Howard has done an unbelievably good job of taking Dan Brown's pitifully dull prose and turning it into equally pathetic images on the screen. This whole thing is so laughable and hollow that it almost knocked me off of my seat. I found the book contained a fascinating story, but Howard can't pinch an ounce of life into this awful mess; 95% of the time I felt completely uninvolved with what was happening. This is, perhaps, a career low for Tom Hanks and, as for Howard, he already made The Grinch That Stole Christmas, so what was I really expecting?

Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 4.5

Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976)

Location: Home
Seen Before: No
Rating: 5.0